


God Complex

by MasonRust



Series: The End [1]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Character Death, Death, Gen, Hurt, Pain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:17:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,096
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5371658
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasonRust/pseuds/MasonRust
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>WARNING - Character death and depiction of death</p><p>After a terrible accident during a rescue, John talks to Scott and finds that he is more human than anyone thought.</p>
            </blockquote>





	God Complex

John had always resented the term God complex, especially as it has been used to describe him by more than one over-eager pop-psychologist trying to capture what made John so good at his job. In a small way John knew it was true, but it wasn’t a complex. It was just his job. Up high in five, only reachable by transmission, he decided which emergencies to respond to, prioritized which victims needed rescue and which brother would take them on. Then, as his brothers jetted off to the pre-determined locations he watched as they gathered up victims and stabilized disaster. His decisions on which to respond to went unquestioned, his judgment was final. He was God and they were his angels, ready to bring salvation to the human race. In actuality there were only two ways in which John was not like God. The first was that John was replied to a message, and the second was that John was not infallible. 

The explosion had been as vicious as it had been unexpected, and all John could do was watch as vitals flickered across the screen. People liked to label John with many words, and emotionally detached was one of them. The whole family smiled and laughed at the labels, but he could see the truth behind their eyes. Sometimes they thought he wasn’t quite human. Sitting at the monitor watching the blinking vitals fade and stop, John wasn’t emotionless but he would have given anything not to feel in that moment. If there was a chair he wouldn’t have sat down; in the tradition of Jeff Tracy that was in relief. And John felt no relief at what his computers told him. Alan’s suit was functioning but he was not, and John had an answer to the paradox of the irresistible force: a body and a brick wall. It was the immovable wall, and Alan had slid down it like a broken doll, limbs sprawled across the concrete. Virgil had died soundlessly, his organs fried and scrambled by the shock like eggs in a microwave. Gordon’s and Scott’s were silent, their sensors ripped from their suits. The station was silent, the air around John’s head pressing in on his brain, his ears ringing from the audio. Amidst the silence came a voice.   
“Johnny?”  
Scott’s voice sounded like it had been dragged out of a throat filled with nails. John could hear the sound of his own breathing in the empty air. The sound of the nickname made his blood run cold and his eyes hot.   
“Johnny, are you there?”  
John’s hand moved before his mind, clean fingers pressing down the button as he spoke.   
“I’m here.”  
The sound of Scott’s breathing filled the room, laboured and wet. John couldn’t hear his own anymore.   
“Are they alright? Are Virgil and Alan alright?”  
The desperation made the voice reedy and weak, like a rat scrabbling up the wall of a bathtub while the water lapped at its feet. John’s lack of reply made a bubbling sound come out of Scott, something that would have sounded like a sob in an intact human.   
“Scott, I’ve lost Gordon’s readings.”  
“He’s not here anymore John.”  
“I can’t be sure-“  
“He’s in too many places to be here Johnny.”  
The voice was even, but the tone wasn’t calm. Another desperate breath as the water lapped at the rat’s throat. It was wet and rattling.   
“Johnny?!”  
“Shhhh. It’s okay.”  
It wasn’t okay, it was worlds away from okay but Scott’s breath was choking him and his voice was scared.   
“You there Johnny?”  
“I’m here Scott. I’m not going anywhere.”  
But John wasn’t there. In that moment John would have traded anything to be sitting in the rubble, to be able to reach out and touch the broken, bleeding body. But he wasn’t, he was miles away. Watching but not seeing, watching but not feeling.  
“I think I can see the stars Johnny.”  
“What do they look like?”  
John didn’t have the heart to tell Scott that he couldn’t possibly be seeing the stars at 11 in the morning.  
“They’re nice. But I can’t see you.”  
“I’m never there.”  
“You’re always here. Its just sometimes I can’t see you.”  
The water running down John’s face sizzled on the electronics but he couldn’t wipe it up. His knuckles were white and he couldn’t feel his body.   
“Can you talk to me Johnny?”  
The words were whispered, the breaths were rattles. John opened his mouth but no sound came out, no words coming into his blank and swirling brain. Finally a voice emerged, smooth and calm. John didn’t know whose it was.   
“Sure Scott. What to you want me to say?”  
“Tell me about the stars again.”  
“They can burn between 2600 and 33000 or more degrees Kelvin, and they come in many colours: blue, yellow, white, red, orange.”  
There was another, laboured, rattling, wet breath and John’s voice would have broken but the strangers did not.   
“They’re born from dust and hydrogen, from the bodies of stars that died before them. And when they expand and die they will form new stars, leaving only small pieces of themselves behind.”  
There was no breath anymore, no sound from the broken body and John couldn’t see from the liquid in his eyes. He didn’t know how he ended up on the floor, but he lay there anyway, face pressed into the glass, the weight of gravity nothing to the force that was keeping his body on the ground. John couldn’t hear anything, trapped somewhere deep inside his own body, deep inside his own brain. If this was what it was like to be God, then John didn’t want the job. The small giggle that worked its way out of his lungs was twisted and choked into a sob. Because John didn’t believe in God. And now he was alone in the sky, the black of space draining the life out of his limbs, the world below taunting him with its beauty. John shut his eyes and didn’t open them again. 

 

“Thunderbird 5? Thunderbird 5 come in. John? Are you there? John?”  
Penelope pressed the button again and again, waiting for the final Tracy to answer. The hall was silent, the coffins cold. She stood among them and gazed up at the sky. Guests milled around the funeral like crows, picking at the bodies of the dead. She sighed and brought the communicator back up.   
“John please, I’ve been trying for days. John please I’m begging you. You need to come home. John?”  
There was no answer.


End file.
